


Caveat Emptor

by Anoke



Series: [Internal Screaming] [2]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: (mild but present), Aftermath of Torture, Aiden (The Witcher) Lives, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Eye Trauma, F/M, Finally, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Trauma, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Multi, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Nonbinary Lambert (The Witcher), Other, Post-Canon, Trauma, gender nonconforming Lambert (The Witcher), mad science mages
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:28:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28433166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anoke/pseuds/Anoke
Summary: Keira and Lambert find out that Aiden is, perhaps, not as dead as previously believed.
Relationships: Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher), Lambert (The Witcher)/Keira Metz, Lambert/Keira Metz
Series: [Internal Screaming] [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2082561
Comments: 48
Kudos: 64





	Caveat Emptor

**Author's Note:**

> So this isn't quite [Bomberqueen17's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17) series [Trust](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2048918), but it's the same idea. I just spent a lot longer on the Aiden torment. *looks back at Fair Trade* a whole forty thousand words of it.

Lambert had told her about Aiden three months ago. Awkward, defensive, and halting, but he had told her. Consequently, her partner’s lost love was fresh in her mind when she heard the rumor.

_A Witcher has been nearby when mages die. A Witcher with white-blond hair and cross-hatched facial scars._

It was almost nothing, _would_ have been nothing, if Lambert hadn’t just told her about a very particular blond Witcher. One that he was certain was dead.

As it was, however, she spent another two months quietly investigating.

It was impossible to be completely sure of anything, of course, but some relentless plumbing of her sources of gossip turned up three deaths over the past eight years, all with relatively credible sightings of a blond Witcher in the vicinity prior to. The deaths were spread wide across the Continent, both in locations and dates, and there’d been none for the last two years.

Keira stared at her map. The problem, of course, was that Witchers rarely _had_ bases of operation, especially not the ones who’d started killing people. Still, if she could track down a general location, she could—

Well, what _could_ she do? Or, more accurately, what would she _want_ to do? 

_What would **Lambert** do, if he found out Aiden was alive?_ She snorted at that thought. _That’s simple enough. Lambert would run to find him, and probably cleave so tightly to his side that I couldn’t get him loose even with Naristrum’s Severance—_

Dammit. She needed better information on the situation before she could even start to think about relatively minor considerations like— like that. And, with that in mind, she called Yennefer.

“Keira?” Yennefer said when she answered on her megascope. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“We may have a problem,” Keira said.

“Oh?” Yennefer asked, with a tilt of her head.

“Yes. There’s a Witcher who I’m almost certain has been killing mages.”

Yennefer’s eyes widened slightly. “I haven’t heard of this. Enlighten me.”

Keira laid out most of the evidence she had, omitting only who she thought the Witcher might be. 

Yennefer was scowling by the time she was done. “A Witcher turning serial killer is— completely unprecedented.”

Keira hummed. “I understand many of the Witchers of the Cat School took up work as assassins?” she asked. “What makes you think they haven’t been hired?”

“Many of the Cats did,” Yennefer allowed. “But I can’t believe that the Church of the Eternal Fire would stoop so low as to hire a _mutant_ to kill for them, and I can’t think of anyone else with the funds and motive to want so many mages dead.”

Keira tapped her foot on the floor, thinking. “And the rumors I’ve heard, about the Cats’ mental instability? That couldn’t account for this?”

“No. From everything I’ve heard, when a Cat goes mad, he turns into a killing machine; he won’t be constrained to just one target, he’ll go for anyone and everyone in the vicinity. If it’s a Cat doing this, he’s not a madman,” Yennefer said seriously. “I take it you have an idea for who this Witcher is, with this line of questioning.”

No,” Keira lied, before she could stop herself. “No, I wanted to deduce what reason a Witcher could possibly have to do this, before any of us took action to try and find and stop them. I know you’re aware of how… obstinate… Witchers can be when it comes to others of their kind.”

“You’re not incorrect,” Yennefer said, and frowned. “Actually—”

“Yes?” Keira asked.

“Silas Dupont lived near Corvo Bianco,” Yennefer said, frowning. “Hmm.”

Keira waited.

“I believe we may have some of his former servants here,” Yennefer said. “I’ll call you back once I’ve spoken to them.”

She left immediately, and Keira scowled and settled in to wait for her to call back. She tried to get some work done, but she kept getting distracted. What was she going to _do_ , if this did turn out to be Aiden? Why would someone Lambert had described as the best person he knew be murdering people? The dead mages may not be particularly nice people, but Keira didn’t think any of them had been experimenting on humans, which she could see as a reason someone moral might want them dead.

Would _Lambert_ do what needed to be done if the worst had happened? Should she even tell him if it had? It might break him to have to kill Aiden, if he really had become a murderer, but would he ever forgive Keira if she took care of it and he somehow found out?

She still didn’t have any answers when Yennefer called back. The other mage’s face was stormy when Keira picked up.

“About four weeks before Silas was found dead, he supposedly hired a Witcher to collect a number of rare alchemical components for him. I say supposedly because none of the servants saw Silas after the Witcher began showing up,” Yennefer began.

Keira blinked. “So he killed the mage and then hung around for a month? Was Silas an alchemist?”

“No,” Yennefer said. “He made golems, actually. But the far more interesting part is that _Silas_ had recently lost a bet with a rival mage, Artorius of Talgar, not too long before the Witcher showed up.”

Keira cocked an eyebrow.

“They were betting on whether or not a Witcher would be able to defeat one of Silas’ golems,” Yennefer continued. “The Witcher won. And _Artorius_ is still alive and well.”

Keira wasn’t sure what to make of the significant look Yennefer was giving her. “I’m sorry, you'll have to explain a little further,” she said.

“You’ve never met Artorius, I take it?” she asked Keira.

“No, why?”

“He’s absolutely obsessed with Witchers,” Yennefer said grimly. “I checked, too; all three of the names you gave me were people who’d had disagreements with him in the past.”

“So he’s been hiring a Witcher to kill people he dislikes?” Keira asked.

“I haven’t yet met a Witcher who wanted anywhere near a mage obsessed with them, especially not repeatedly. They tend not to enjoy being used in experiments. I suppose one mustn’t _completely_ discount the idea that the Witcher is working with Artorius of his own free will,” Yennefer said. “I just wouldn’t call it at all likely.” She hummed to herself for a moment. 

“Although— Two years ago, a scholar in Metinna was murdered and several of his documents stolen. Among them was research belonging to a mage from Toussaint who had been doing research into Witcher mutations, quite some time ago. I’d been looking out for information on Witchers, which was what brought my attention to the theft,” Yennefer said. “That _might_ be something worth working with an obsessed mage for…”

Keira tried not to clench her jaw too hard. If the maybe-Aiden Witcher had had some kind of deal with Artorius— well. He might be locatable, although that might not be a blessing.

“But, ah. The mage’s actual lab was untouched when Geralt found it. So if they were looking for that, they didn’t find the source.”

“But the Witcher _was_ doing something that kept him in Toussaint for quite some time,” Keira said. “And that something involved gathering rare alchemical components.”

Yennefer frowned again. “I suppose it depends on how complete the research stolen from the Mettinan scholar was. It’s possible it contained enough information to replicate Moreau’s work without his equipment.”

“If the Witcher is looking for a way to make more—” Keira said, then trailed off. 

“I don’t think any of the Wolves would stand for it,” Yennefer said. “They were only barely willing to put one person through the pain in hopes of finding Ciri— they won’t start up the whole system again.”

Since Keira was _very_ familiar with just how opposed Lambert was to the concept of making more Witchers, she just nodded in agreement.

Yennefer sighed. “It sounds like we need more information before we do anything. I would usually suggest that we begin by looking into other mage deaths, to see how prolific this has been, but given— everything, that information might well be useless.”

“Perhaps we could cross-reference with mages Artorius of Taglar disagreed with,” Keira said grimly.

“That’s probably a place to start, though it won’t tell us if this Witcher has killed mages for any other reasons,” Yennefer said, just as grim. “I’ll speak with you again if I find anything.”

She disconnected the call, and Keira took a deep breath before starting the megascope up again. It would only take a couple of hours to reach everyone with a megascope that she trusted to feed her information. She had so few connections, now. 

Keira called people roughly locationally, south up. Everyone knew other mages who’d been killed or who had disappeared during the witch hunts, of course, and Keira dutifully took notes on the ones who hadn’t obviously been killed by Radovid or the Eternal Fire. She was drooping a bit by the time she rang the last name on her list, a sorceress who had fled to Kovir with Triss Merigold, if she was remembering correctly.

“Keira!” the woman, Iilya, said when she picked up. “I was just about to call you— something awful’s just happened!”

A chill went down Keira’s spine. “What is it?”

“Yolaine— she’s a mage who lived here, oversaw mining safety— she’s just been killed in a collapse!” Iilya was weeping. “It’d been cleared as safe, she was just making sure there was no structural damage—”

“Safe from what?” Keira asked, sharply.

“There was an angry knocker in the mine,” Iilya said. “They’d hired a Witcher.”

Keira made all the right sympathetic noises while trying to find out as much as she could. Unfortunately, Iilya hadn’t seen the Witcher, but Keira managed to get her to dig up Yolaine’s upcoming inspection schedule so she could copy it down. Then she spent a little while calming Iilya down before ending the call and heading into her office to do some cross-referencing.

Keira stared at her list, and the new name she’d just added to it. Yolaine of Kovir. Due to inspect the mine that Artorius owned the next month, after a less-than-satisfactory inspection the last time. Fuck. Either the at-least-two murders prior to the mutation documents weren’t enough to pay for it, or the Witcher working for Artorius wasn’t doing so of his own free will. She needed to tell Lambert.

* * *

It went about as well as she’d expected. Lambert had spent two gut-wrenchingly long seconds looking like someone had cored out his heart, then twisted himself into white-hot anger to cope.

“Gods _damn_ it, Lambert, I need you to _listen to me!_ ” Keira said, a good few minutes in.

“Why _should I?_ ” Lambert yelled. “After I find out you’ve been _lying to me—_ ”

“Lambert, I _still_ don’t know for certain if it’s him!” she said. “Nobody had seen this Witcher in close to two years. And he did _not_ ,” she said over Lambert starting to open his mouth in fury, “disappear after I began my investigations, I heard rumors _four months ago,_ and I was _looking into them_ when I had word of another assassination, and I came _right_ to you after that!”

“And you wanted to make _sure_ that I wouldn’t be chasing down a _murderer_ when you told me?” he hissed. “You were just so _concerned_ that I might have been _completely wrong_ about what kind of person he was?”

Keira jerked back, feeling like she’d been slapped. Well, he wasn’t actually wrong, was he. She _had_ been trying to figure out if the Witcher was murdering mages of his own free will or not before letting Lambert know about him.

“Would he have done it if there was something huge to gain by it?” Keira asked. “Letho of Gulet turned regicide for a safe haven for Witchers.”

“ _You—_ ” Lambert said, and turned to stalk across the room again.

“It looks like he and the mage may have collected some real, working research on Witcher mutations, Lambert,” she said.

Lambert whirled around at that, teeth bared. The one outsized fang looked a lot more threatening from this end of things. Keira bared her own teeth in return and waited. It was something she might have thought herself foolish for, three years ago— but damn it, she _trusted_ Lambert. (Well, baring one's teeth _was_ a mammalian threat gesture, but for Witchers, despite the extra power and general sharpness they could put behind it, it was a fairly low-level one, something that you would do among other Witchers if you were in a regular disagreement. A cultural thing Keira was still figuring out, along with a general system of physical contact and roughhousing.)

The one time she’d reacted in genuine fear when they’d been having an argument, he’d stopped dead and left, and sat down and _talked_ about what they’d been fighting over after he came back. She’d tested it since then, too, and every single time she’d made it clear she didn’t like whatever argument they were having he would reel himself in or leave and come back when he _could_ reel himself in. That wasn’t to say that he sometimes didn’t say absolutely vicious things when he was extremely upset, but, they all had their flaws, and by the metrics, Lambert’s decision to not keep pushing when she was reacting badly—well, it was rather astounding, actually.

“There is _no fucking way_ that Aiden would be trying to figure out Witcher mutations again,” Lambert said. “He _knew—_ ” His voice cracked and his expression changed to one of pain.

Keira sighed, letting her shoulders fall. “Just— walk me through this, please? I _want_ to help. If it’s him—”

Lambert made a horrible sound and spun on his heel to start pacing again. “That _fucker_ Karadin was working with slavers. They— I never— there wasn’t a body. I thought they’d burned it but there wasn’t a _body—_ ”

“Lambert,” Keira said softly.

“I—” Lambert said, that terrible expression of pain on his face again. “Why didn’t I _think—_ ”

“Because everyone told you he was dead?” Keira pointed out, not ungently.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Lambert said, and folded himself into a ball on the floor, burying his face in his arms.

Keira carefully sat down next to him, and wrapped her arms around him and held him as he leaned into her side, rubbing at his back as he tried to stifle sobs. Several minutes later, Lambert drew in one deep, shuddering breath and looked up. His eyes were red with the crying, and she could _see_ a disgusting bubble of snot on his face and there was probably a ton of it smeared on his shirt and dammit she still—

“We’ll rescue him, Lambert,” she said, rather than let the thought run to completion. “We will.”

Lambert took another shaky breath and— yep, wiped his face with his sleeve, _ew,_ instead of just getting a handkerchief, and she dug around and pulled one out instead of recoiling back, gods she was such an idiot— and he took the kerchief but looked her in the eyes instead of using it. Keira did her best to meet his gaze levely.

“We’ll rescue him,” she said, ignoring the pang. She couldn’t imagine Lambert having a similar breakdown over her, somehow.

“Okay,” Lambert said, raspily. “Okay.” And then, thankfully, finally used the handkerchief.

* * *

“The problem is,” Keira said, some time later, “That there’s really no level for me to frame myself as competition on. Artorius might be filthy rich, but from an academic and magical standpoint…”

“Be like a single drowner attacking a Witcher?” Lambert volunteered from where he’d been intermittently pacing and doing various bits of alchemical prep work.

“Rather,” Keira said, disappointed.

“Could you approach him to talk about Witchers?” Lambert asked. 

“I still know more—well, ‘more’, but as he’s not advertising—than he does, and I have easy access to more than a few direct sources,” Keira said. “So there wouldn’t be any reason for me to reach out to build a new contact. Maybe if I’d figured it out a year or two earlier, when there was still all of the—” she waved a hand “—uncertainty about my potential place in the new government, I might have been able to play it as desperately trying to make myself useful in some way to the new Crown Princess. But now…” 

“You have it too good for that to be believable,” Lambert said succinctly. “Are you _sure_ we can’t just— have me approach him somehow? So I can get close enough to stab him?”

“Lambert, I am not taking the chance of having to fight him _and_ you and Aiden,” Keira said dryly. “And I don’t _know_ how he’s controlling Aiden; finding out how to remove whatever spells are on him will be much simpler if we can actually _ask._ ”

Lambert grimaced, showing his teeth again. “Right. And I’m sure we’ll ask _very nicely._ ”

Keira tapped a foot, thinking of the mages Artorius had had murdered. About the likelihood that he’d been doing goddess-knew-what with someone Lambert obviously cared about very much.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I believe we’ll be able to convince him.”

**Author's Note:**

> A big thank-you to everyone for their patience on this one. As I may have mentioned previously, I recently moved (cross-country) and I've been looking for a new job, and unfortunately I haven't had time/energy for writing as much. I'm still here and still focusing on Witcher, and I really really do intend to finish my ongoing fics, it just might take a bit.


End file.
